Black Owned Streaming Service KweliTV Curating Global Black Experience
- Sahar
- Nov 2, 2021
- 2 min read
KweliTV is the new black streaming service that celebrates black stories from around the world through curated independent films, documentaries, web series, and more.
Within the KweliTV content library, you'll find storytellers of the diaspora sharing unique perspectives and histories from places like North America, Africa, Europe, Latin America, the Caribbean, and Asia. KweliTV provides a platform for this diverse, yet high-quality content on their user friendly website. 98% of the films on the platform have been official selections at film festivals all around the world.
Because KweliTV values their content creators, the majority of every subscription goes to the filmmakers and curators who bring these stories to life. In addition to the website, kweliTV is streaming on Roku, Amazon Firestick, AppleTV, Android TV iOS, GooglePlay for Android, Chromecast, and more.
The inspiration for creating kweliTV came one evening while DeShuna Spencer was flipping through what felt like endless cable channels. She grew frustrated with the same stereotypes and character dynamics. Spencer wanted to curate content that was relevant to people like her.
DeShuna was starving for documentaries, educational think-pieces, and cinematic indie films with clever storylines centered around black characters. She discovered some of who would become her favorite black bloggers on this journey; exhausted with the lack of diversity, she canceled her cable service and bought a popular video subscription hoping to find more independent films and documentaries from black filmmakers.
Disappointment continued when she realized that most of her favorite indie films were unavailable unless she physically traveled to a film festival. So she canceled her subscription after a few months and decided to create something herself. That's how kweliTV was born.
DeShuna was curious about what black culture was like for people living in places like Ghana, Brazil, and Mozambique.
The media tells stories through many different mediums: journalism, tv shows, film, music videos, video games, and when advertising. When black people are not the decision-makers at major media organizations, our complex identities and voices are not properly represented. This results in major networks missing the mark on producing authentic content that is black culture.
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